Coaching German

Highs and lows of a rising young star

Oklahoma State Cross Country coach Dave Smith was at the 8K mark of the 2008 NCAA cross country championship when Cowboys junior John Kosgei came running past without freshman prodigy German Fernandez at his side. Immediately Smith realized that the worst-case scenario had come to pass: Fernandez had dropped out of the race with an injury.

A distracted Smith did his best to encourage the rest of his guys through 10K, while spectators who had (purportedly) seen Fernandez go down proffered Smith grave news: "His Achilles -- it's rolled up into his calf; it's ruptured; it's catastrophic; it's ... over." That's it, he feared, I take the next great American distance runner and ruin him in three months!

By the time Smith reached Fernandez he was face down in the medical tent, covered head to toe in blankets. The Oklahoma State trainer did his best to reassure Smith that, while there was trauma to Fernandez's right Achilles, it wasn't as bad as reported.

One day later Smith and Fernandez got the official word after an MRI: yes, the star freshman did suffer some trauma, but the extent of the damage was akin to a bad ankle sprain. The doctor described it as painful but not serious, and informed them that Fernandez could resume running in two to four weeks, progressing as his body dictated. What would Smith do now?

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF?

Just five years ago fellow prodigy Alan Webb was in an eerily similar situation after he injured his Achilles just weeks after a similarly glittering NCAA cross country season while running for Michigan. Webb eventually redshirted the indoor season while battling the injury, ran a (by his exacting standards) sub-par outdoor campaign, and relocated to Virginia to train once more with his high school coach -- this time as a professional runner. Rightly or wrongly, pundits buried Michigan mentor Ron Warhurst for his handling of America's young mile sensation, and Webb's decision to turn pro launched a debate as to whether the collegiate system is the right environment within which to develop top talent.

Fernandez shares Webb's talent and drive; sitting idly while injured, well, it doesn't sit well. While not cleared to run he spent about two hours daily cross-training: on the bike, in the pool, or lifting weights. Yet, just two weeks after the MRI, Smith received a call from the weight room that Fernandez was running on the treadmill. A day later Fernandez rolled his ankle on the OSU cross country course, sidelining him for yet another few days. It was a serendipitous roll: Finally, Fernandez allowed his body to rest.

Around Christmas Fernandez resumed running, feeling rejuvenated. He tested himself on a 4-mile tempo run, during which he ran much faster than Smith would have liked -- so fast, in fact, that Smith demurs when asked what time he clocked. Mystique can be a powerful weapon in a runner's quiver.

TRAIN BIG, RACE LOW

Back at OSU Smith reiterated to Fernandez the plan he's had for him since Fernandez set foot on campus: train big and race low. He arrived with an amazingly developed aerobic system and through this year Smith's plan is to keep building his engine with long, aerobic workouts. Yet if Fernandez is to one day win international championships, it will be because he has the race savvy to complement the absurd fitness required to compete as an international. To that end, Smith has resolved to let Fernandez develop those skills (like Webb, he was seldom tested in high school; his big races were effectively time trials) in races from 800m to 5,000m, where his goal will not be to set a record or a PR, but simply to win.

As they prepared for Fernandez's season-opening mile race on Jan. 23 in Fayetteville, Ark., they worked out according to plan, with two weeks of aerobic workouts ranging from 10 x 400m in 63 with a 100m jog to 6 x mile in 4:40. It was immediately evident to Smith that the forced convalescence had done Fernandez a world of good: Smith did all he could to hold Fernandez back "short of tackling him," as he finished the quarters in 61 and 59 two days before his debut college mile. Yet even then, the times weren't what impressed Smith: Fernandez was running so effortlessly and recovering so quickly between intervals that Smith felt there was much, much more in store.

EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS

Fernandez's collegiate track debut would also be his first indoor race of his life. From the list of names in the field Smith ascertained that this race would probably run between 4:00 and 4:02, and he promptly downplayed any expectations Fernandez may have had, telling him he'd "probably get blasted," and instructing him only to hang in the pack and move in the last 500. Per the plan, no time goals were set, though he assumed Fernandez would be in contention for the win.

"German," Smith says, "is an amazingly instinctual racer" who knows how to drop the hammer at the right time. Smith first witnessed this in a session of repeat miles last fall (see video) when he stretched senior teammate Ryan Vail -- a consummate veteran with 13:41 track credentials -- to the limit by perfectly timing an acceleration on the last interval. He finished the move he started in practice at the Big 12 Cross Country Championships, when he gapped reigning NCAA 5,000m champion Shadrack Songok of Texas A&M by an astonishing 7 seconds over the last 250m.

In Arkansas, Smith watched Fernandez run a tactically perfect race going into the final quarter. With 200 to go, Fernandez dropped the hammer on Razorbacks' star Dorian Ulrey on the way to a world junior record 3:56.50 in his first-ever indoor race.

LET IT FLOW

The phone rang off the hook after that: a national TV appearance here, a record-chase there. Smith declined them all, intent to stick to the plan: "Keep him fresh and keep building that base with tempo runs and rhythm runs on the dirt roads around town."

After Fernandez won the junior national cross country championship on Feb. 7, he was noncommittal about the world junior cross country race; the only other plan was a smattering of races from 800m to 5,000m this spring, and nothing more. If more records fall, they'll fall as his latest record did, in the natural flow of racing, rather than on an opportunistic whim.

None of this will be possible if a sense of perspective is lost where it matters most: in Fernandez's head. Prodigies from Jim Ryun to Alan Webb have struggled with the weight of outlandish expectation others have hoisted on their shoulders.

If Fernandez decides to turn pro early, those expectations will increase exponentially. Conversely, if he stays the course and learns his craft as just one of the guys on the team -- something he's relished thus far in Stillwater -- he's more apt not to fall into the trap of letting others value his progress. Moreover, in college he'll mature emotionally and intellectually. Silly as it may sound, the more he can learn to compartmentalize his self-worth from his athletic feats, the more he is apt to recover quickly from the inevitable pitfalls and run free when he's fit: the results of which, as demonstrated by his mile debut, are as freakish as his talent.